WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? Kenneth W. Phifer Sermon delivered 9/7/03 As we near the second anniversary of 9/11, the question that was so urgent in the immediate aftermath of that calamity continues to disturb us: where do we go from here? It is a question that always arises in the wake of some watershed event in our lives: a death, a disaster, a graduation, a promotion or a firing, a financial windfall, a marriage or a divorce, any moment when life is dramatically changed. Such occasions offer us the chance to re-evaluate our lives. We have the opportunity to re-think our goals and purposes, to find the right path for moving towards those goals and purposes, and to clarify the values by which we feel we should live. Sometimes we discover in these re-evaluations a deepening of our present ways. Sometimes we are moved to make radical changes. The play, QUIET IN THE LAND by Anne Chislett, tells of a community of Amish Mennonites in Canada during the First World War. That war has forced hard decisions on this community of non-violent people, who seek only to be left alone to pursue their faith. Should they obey the law and register their young men for the draft? Should they resist if one of their young men is drafted into the military? How much do they owe, how much dare they give, to the larger society in which they are nestled without losing themselves in the process? These questions are brought to a head when one young man, Yock, beaten by his father for blasphemy, leaves the community. He joins the army and becomes a hero, while his father disowns him for having breached the code of conduct of his church. Yock returns after the war, hoping to find reconciliation with his father, even though he cannot return to the church. He no longer shares the beliefs of the church in which he was raised. His father will not forgive him, indeed he will not even listen to him. Yock shouts out his message anyway. He screams through the cabin walls that his father was right, that war is horrible and terrible and unforgivable. He says that he should never have gone off to fight just because he was mad at his father and his faith community. He describes in hideous detail his killing with a bayonet of a soldier on the other side. The memory of that act haunts him and will continue to do so. To no avail. His father is unyielding. When Yock learns that his girl friend has married his best friend, he realizes that he must leave the community. He must find a new path that is neither the rigid path of his upbringing nor the murderous path of the warrior. As he prepares to leave, he tells his friend Menno, "I've got to be sure that something good comes out of this." The play ends here. We do not know what happens to Yock or to the community he leaves behind, only that neither will ever be the same again. It is to be hoped that the community, like Yock, will indeed try to make something good out of this. Well might we try to do the same in this continuing season of re-evaluation after 9/11. We need, the whole world needs, to try to bring something good out of all this death and destruction and disaster. We need to find worthy goals and lofty purposes for which we can strive. We need to find honorable paths on which we can walk towards our goals. We need to find decent values to help guide us on our way. When Martin Luther King., Jr. posed the question that I have borrowed for the title of this sermon—where do we go from here?--he offered two stark alternatives: chaos or community. The world is full of chaos, some of it beyond our control. Many choose to walk on that path. War is chaos, the chaos that still rules Afghanistan everywhere except in Kabul and the chaos that makes life in Iraq very dangerous for soldiers and civilians alike. The Center of Defense Information reports that there are more than 30 active violent conflicts around the globe this year. Hatred is chaos, the hatred that leads people to desecrate a Jewish student center, a Roman Catholic student center, and a Protestant church here in Ann Arbor, the hatred that inspired an e-mail campaign that attacks Muslims for being murderous and encourages Americans to boycott the new 37 cent Eid holiday stamp issued by the Post Office. An economy where the stock market and unemployment go up together, where taxes are drastically cut as expenditures for war mount, where businesses spend more than a trillion dollars a year on marketing, twice as much as is spent on education at all levels, that too is a form of chaos. The randomness of life itself is also a kind of chaos. In recent weeks the chaotic wheel of life has brought sudden blindness to the husband of UU minister Judith Walker-Riggs, paralysis after an accident to the fiancé of a former member of this congregation, and death to Sonia Ahmed who on her way to her driver's license test when she pulled out in front of a gravel hauler here at the corner of our church. There is no better word than chaos to describe the Winchester Mansion of San Jose, California. Sarah Winchester was the widow of the owner of the Winchester Repeating Rifle Company. When he died, she moved from Connecticut to California. There, so the story goes, she felt that the ghosts of those who had died by rifle fire were urging her to build on to the eight- room Victorian home she had purchased in San Jose without cessation. Lacking architectural skill or training, she did what the ghosts told her to do. She kept an average of 16 carpenters employed round the clock seven days a week, doing what she told them to do for 38 years. Without plan, without order, without beauty, she directed the building of a vast wandering maze of 160 rooms with 10,000 windows, nine kitchens, 47 fireplaces, and 13 bathrooms. Stairways melt into solid walls. Doors open up to the outside twenty feet above the ground. A spiral staircase with two-inch risers elevates only five feet. A gorgeous stained glass window opens on to a wall. Sarah Winchester was an immensely wealthy woman who gave sparingly to charity but generously to the construction of one of the weirdest buildings humanity has ever put up. It is chaotic, and inspires the comment from many people that was on my lips as I left: "What a waste!" Sarah Winchester, confronting the watershed event of losing her husband after losing her only child in infancy 15 years earlier, wasted her money, her energy, her talent as a linguist (she spoke four languages as a young woman) and her talent as a musician (she was an organist). Chaos took over her life. Chaos is a threat to every one of us, especially in moments of great change. When upheaval forces upon us a turn in our lives, it can be very easy, as it was for Sarah Winchester, to descend into chaos. We can do this by opting out of the world, as Mrs. Winchester did, or as those who live only for their own pleasure do. We can do this by rigidly clinging to old dogmas despite evidence to the contrary or the dictates of compassion and love, as Yock's father in the play QUIET IN THE LAND did. Surely the wiser path is to move towards community in every way that we can. Here are some late summer thoughts on how we might do that. First, recognize the interdependence of the world. Humanity is part of nature not apart from it. We have to live in harmony with all life forms and with the earth of which we are a part. We appear to be nature's thinkers. As such we need to develop long-term strategies that will serve all life well. Much of nature is red in tooth and claw, but there would be no life if there were not also cooperation and sharing. The important thing in recognizing and furthering the community of nature is to see ourselves as part of an interconnected web, and to appreciate the role of stewardship that is ours. Our Green Sanctuary Committee and our Land Use Committee work hard to be sure that we in this congregation are good stewards of our 46 acres, friends of the earth, models of how to be in harmony with the rest of nature. We are also part of a world-wide human community. We are connected electronically to almost every corner of the globe. Our modes of transportation quickly carry us to distant places. Our foods and clothes and machines and hosts of other products are made globally. For good or for ill—and there is much of both—the many varieties of human beings are all mixed up together. Consider: men, women, and children from 86 countries who worked at, had business at, were eating or shopping or just touring at the World Trade Center perished on September 11, 2001. The expressions of grief over that horrible disaster came from almost every country in the world, from every religion in the world, from every culture in the world. People the world over felt a sense of revulsion at what the terrorists had done and a sense of connection to each other in a time of immense sadness. Two days after that terrible event, United States Senator Christopher Dodd became a father for the first time. He noticed that the two doctors and the pediatric nurse who helped with the birth, washed the baby and took care of it in the early minutes of its life all spoke English with accents. He inquired where they were from. A bit timidly—they knew who he was and they knew their answer might not be at all pleasing to him—they said they were from Afghanistan, Iran, and Lebanon. "The first hands to hold this wonderful daughter of mine were from that part of the world," Dodd reflected. It made him think more deeply of what peace really means and who truly is my neighbor. Commenting on this story, Anouar Majid writes that "in such a crowded world, the solution is not so much blending into an amorphous, common identity, but doing our utmost to live up to, or creatively combine, the best ideals of our ideologies and religions…There is no reason that cultures and religions cannot disagree and yet live together." It is unlikely that people are going to change their minds about deeply held convictions or customs that are comfortable and of long standing. It is very possible for us to co-exist with harmony even though we are different. Working towards that kind of communal feeling is essential for building a community of all the world's peoples. To build community, we can recognize the interdependence of nature and humanity. To build community we can work to seamlessly interweave ends and means. One of the great temptations of human life is the temptation to believe that if we have noble ends then we can with impunity use whatever means we need to in order to reach those ends. One of the most common unworthy means used to protect supposedly high aims is that of lying. Winston Churchill once said that "in war-time, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." The problem with lying, whether in wartime or peacetime, is that sometimes the truth that is protected is corruption and the misuse of power. Lies always violate the canon of transparency that is fundamental to democracy. One of the grave questions before the American and British publics today is whether our leaders lied to us about their urgency to rush into war with Iraq. Are there weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? If there are, where are they? If there are not, were they ever there and if so, what happened to them? Were the President and the Prime Minister fed lies that in good faith they passed on to the public as a justification for war? Did they know that their words about the capacity of Iraq to wreak grievous damage on the United States were false? Even if one supports the war in Iraq, surely no one could support the use of lies to take us into that war. Lies destroy trust and undermine the spirit of democracy. Democracy is predicated upon truthful information being available to the citizens. Only with truth can we make informed decisions about supporting or opposing governmental policies, and at regular points in time make decisions about whether to continue certain individuals in office. Presidents, and maybe prime ministers as well, have a bad habit of not telling the truth to the public. Eisenhower lied about the U-2 flights, Johnson about Tonkin Gulf, Nixon about Watergate, and Clinton about his sex life. In none of these or in countless other instances was fudging the truth honorable or a way of furthering any worthy cause. In every instance, lying brought trouble to the President and to the nation. Consider the possibility for harm when doctors lie to potential subjects about the risks involved in a research protocol. The Tuskegee study of syphilis in which the federal government lied by not telling its African American subjects of new drugs to treat the disease meant that suffering that could have been relieved was not. The worthy goal of gaining knowledge of the way the disease progressed untreated was tainted by such unethical behaviour. It had the further effect of creating an enormous suspicion of medical research and even of clinical practice in the Black community. Only truth can build trust. Without trust, there is no community. We cannot do good in the world without being truthful. Our means—truth-telling— must be commensurate with our ends—promoting the common good in a polity, helping sick people to be healed, inspiring students to study hard and learn well, aiding clients to obtain their rights in court, selling good products to customers and making a profit, raising moral and confident children. We build trust by living up to the ideals we proclaim, by being sure that our means are commensurate with our ends. Ends and means must agree if community is to thrive. One more thing, and that is the need for equity. Equity means "fairness; recourse to principles of justice." Equity means that everybody in a society has opportunity for good work, for good shelter, for good food, for needed medical care, for the development of friendly and of intimate relationships, for times of pleasure, and for participating meaningfully in the democratic processes by which the society is run. The great religions of the world have all agreed on the importance of equity for community. The Koran teaches that we should "stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to God, even as against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, and whether it concerns rich or poor; for God can best protect both. Follow not the lusts of your hearts lest you swerve, and if you distort justice or decline to do justice, verily God is well-acquainted with all that you do." (Qur'an 4. 135) Jesus taught his disciples that as they fed the hungry and clothed the naked and visited the sick and those in prison, they were honoring and serving God. The Hebrew prophet Micah asked what was needed to appear before God Yahweh, and answered that Yahweh seeks only from us "to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with thy God." (Micah 6:8) The founding documents of our country, which have inspired many of the newly developing countries of the 20th century, teach us about the purpose of government being to protect "certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness," and further, in the Preamble to the Constitution, speak of "establish(ing) Justice…and…(promoting) the general Welfare." Not just western cultures but all cultures have taught the importance of equitable arrangements for all people if there is to be a sense of true community. Without equity, there is strife and tension and hostility. Without equity, there is anger and rebellion and violence. There is no community. Martin Amis wrote a book about Stalin called KOBA THE DREAD, in which he spells out in painful detail the monstrous deeds of this man: murder, torture, starvation, betrayal, theft, destruction. The only equity was an equity of horror and suffering. Stalin, following on Lenin, betrayed the noble ideal of socialism. That ideal can be stated simply: to each according to need; from each according to ability. One of the earliest places to find that ideal is in the Christian Scriptures, in the book of Acts (Acts 4: 34-37), where we read of the early Christians holding possessions in common and distribution being made as persons had need. One does not have to be a communist or a socialist to recognize the power of that ideal of justice: every one will be taken care of, every one will have a chance. Is equity really at the heart of our arrangements for education, for political power, for health care, for jobs and wealth, for retirement programs, and other benefits? Were the tax cuts of the last several years—opposed by a broad bi-partisan coalition of former government officials and people at every point on the economic scale—truly equitable? Or did they merely put more money in the pockets of those who already have a lot of money? Is equity at the heart of our relationship with the rest of the world's peoples? Reading a monthly collection of articles from around the globe and visiting Canada last week, I have the strong impression that others see us a dangerous nation, intent not upon justice but upon having our own way. Robert Reich reports that polls around the world show a growing number of people regard us as a greater threat to world peace than al-Qaeda! A mere two years ago we had the sympathy and strong support of virtually every nation on earth! The world is a very dangerous place. There are violent people all over and weapons of incalculable destructive power. There is a need to take strong security measures to protect as many people as possible. Ultimately, though, the best hope we have is to work for justice. When people feel respected and are treated with fairness, they are less likely to listen to the voices of extremists. Equity opens up the possibility of a truly planetary community. Equity, justice, is a way to build community. Where do we go from here? We can move towards chaos or we can move towards community. Certainly there is a lot of chaos in our world and a lot of chaos in our own lives. We are not likely ever to be entirely rid of chaos, but we do not have to give way before it. We can choose to move in the other direction. We can choose to move towards community by recognizing the interdependence of the world.. We can choose to move towards community by making our means fit our ends. We can choose to more towards community by working for equity in all our relationships. Swami Beyondananda tells a tale of a Native American grandfather talking to his young grandson. He tells the boy that he has two wolves inside of him struggling with each other. One is the wolf of peace, love, and kindness-- community. The other wolf is fear, greed, and hatred—chaos. "Which wolf will win, grandfather?" the boy asks. The grandfather replies simply, "Whichever one I feed." May we feed the wolf of peace and love and kindness, the wolf of community. That is a good place for us to go from here and a good way to get there. Copyright 2003 Kenneth W. Phifer All Rights Reserved